Category Archives: Uncategorized

April 25, 2016

Shrinking and Expanding

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If you’ve been hanging out here with me for a while or join me on Instagram you’ve probably seen dozens of photos over the years where I’ve done this exact move.

When I find a quiet space to take a self-portrait it’s my go-to move, and while it’s ridiculously fun (as I’m sure you can tell by the fact I’m smiling in these shots) there’s a deeper meaning behind it for me.

When I started on my own personal self-portrait journey 10 years ago, I was just emerging from a depression. I had some realizations of the ways I was existing in my life that were keeping me small and deeply draining me. I was burning out and had to learn how to stop putting everyone else before myself.

During this low time one thing that happened was I started to notice the way people took up space. Now, by no means do I mean physically. It was about how we energetically claimed space. I felt like it became my own personal research project for quite a while, observing on the bus, in the city, gardeners at the local community garden, people at events.

Up to this point, I had tried to keep myself small energetically. To not try and annoy the people around me. But it wasn’t in my nature, just circumstance. I move my hands a lot when I talk, I can’t sit still.

I don’t know if anyone’s nature is the definition of ‘perfect’. I think we’re all trying to fit ourselves into a really small box.

But I had done it for a long time and I was exhausted.

I wanted to find out how I moved again, what my ‘nature’ was.

So I started asking myself questions inspired by what I had noticed about people claiming space. Sometimes it seemed like it was something learned or assumed, other times something reclaimed, a confidence, an empowered state of being.

I wanted to find my way to the later. Where I lived more unapologetically (rather than profusely apologetically). Where I didn’t come home after a day with people and question every word I said and have a constant vulnerability hangover. Where I didn’t question my right to space.

But I didn’t want to fit myself into another box either. For me this wasn’t about ‘perfection’. It was about connection. To be centred in myself again and in some ways for the first time.

These questions seemed like the answer and continue to be:

How would I move if for a moment, I forgot how one is ‘supposed’ to be?

What would happen if I didn’t contain my joy, myself?

What does confidence mean to me?

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Of course, my claiming space didn’t start like this, it really began with the tips of my toes and hands into the frame, claiming space with each photo. But when I started using the timer and stepping into the frame of a photo, especially when I’d find those quiet moments where it felt like no one could see me, where I could really dance like no one was watching, this is what I did.

And from the first time I did it, it felt invigorating and also like I’d found something that felt like me. That felt like the way that I’m supposed to move.

It felt expansive and at times was literally me claiming as much space as physically possible.

I’m also claiming space for joy.

For choosing how my body gets to move.

For choosing how I want to see and communicate with my body (and choosing a compassionate voice).

It is also a reclaiming. After feeling like a turtle hiding in her shell for a long time, finally finding her confidence to shed that hiding place and exist in the world without apology, I needed to remind myself of that right to claim space. So that’s why you see this pose so often, even all these years later.

It might look like a fun whimsical pose to do in a photo, but like with all of my whimsical photos, there is a deeper meaning behind it. It’s boldness is in response to feeling the opposite way. It’s playfulness is in response to how incredibly un-playful it is to try and exist for other people’s expectations.

There is another element to this claiming space too. It’s not just the photo itself but the act of taking it. Experiencing the fear or nervousness that comes and doing it anyways. That is the act of claiming space whether it’s your feet in the frame or your whole body.

That’s what changed me, that act of cultivating resilience. The more I pushed through that fear though the camera, the more I rooted back into my own personal power.

And that is what we’re digging into in the upcoming Claiming Space class. We’re going to get brave in our photos but not just to get bold images, but to cultivate that personal resilience, to get to walk away with photos that remind you of that “Wow…I did something I hadn’t believed I could” moment.

Come join me for Claiming Space. We get started oh so soon!

April 23, 2016

Unlearning and Reclaiming

How would you show up in front of the camera if you had never been told what was ‘flattering’?

If you didn’t have any specific perception of what a ‘selfie’ should be?

What would you do the next time you take a selfie if you suddenly forgot what you’d been told you should hide or how to pose? How would you move or stand?

How would you take photos if you’d grown up seeing a representation of your body in the visual media around you (and if you have, how does that play a role in the privilege of how you relate to photos)?

If you knew that you couldn’t do it wrong, that you are enough no matter what?

How would you look into the camera if you hadn’t been told you need to ‘smile for the camera’?

How would you be in a photo if truly no one was watching, if likes or comments had no bearing on your relationship to yourself?

These things that get in the way of seeing ourselves without judgement have been taught to us. So how can we invite ourselves to unlearn them?

We’re claiming space to ask these questions

And to answer them not intellectually but experientially.

Not just with our heads but with our hearts.

Not just with past proof or experience but with the potential of what we have yet to discover.

Not just the answers we think we know but the ones we have yet to uncover.

To create images where we see ourselves represented, our body, here and now.

We’re claiming the space in front of the lens to listen.

To reclaim our self-image and how we choose to see ourselves through the lens.

Claiming ourselves back.

Join me for the Claiming Space E-Course where we’ll dig into these questions through the camera…we get started soon!

April 11, 2016

Going Through the Camera rather than Avoiding it…

It might surprise you (or perhaps not at all) that my goal with all things Be Your Own Beloved isn’t actually to convince you to take selfies everywhere, all the time.

I think that’s something that we’ve been told to panic about selfies. That we’ll be addicted, that we’ll take them all the time everywhere. And some people will (and why don’t we just let them)!

But most of us won’t.

Some days I might fill up a memory card full of selfies, other days just 1 or a few are just right. Other days, none at all.

It’s not an addiction, it’s a place for us to cultivate a relationship with ourselves and the world around us.

Sometimes we might need a lot of that self-care, other days we might not.

Sure, we hear of teens being addicted to taking selfies and yes, presently this is their tool for self-expression. But those teen years are a time where there is the most pivotal self-definition and self-discovery going on. What if they just need these tools a bit more than we might later in life?

But really, this isn’t about how many selfies we take.

It’s about why we might want to take them.

You see, my goal here in these courses isn’t to get you to take a certain number of photos or have new profile pictures (though the later is definitely a perk). My goal instead is to help you get to a place of neutrality with photos. Where you don’t see your body as good or bad in them. Where you are able to see yourself clearly.

Here’s the thing though…it is through taking photos, not avoiding them…that we get to that place where we are no longer triggered by them.

It is through filling up that memory card, being willing to have ‘outtakes’ that we find that neutrality, that we create a habit of cultivating compassion though the camera.

I feel mighty grateful to get to engage with folks daily who are on a body-positive or self-compassion journey who have put SO much effort into healing their relationship to food or exercise, to finding that place of compassion for themselves here and now. Yet SO many of them still have this tenuous relationships with photos.

And it is something we can push to the side. But then we are avoiding being in photos, which in a big way is engaging more in a negative relationship with photos than what we fear might be awaiting us when we actually see the photos.

The fear is harder than the action itself.

We can’t go around our struggle with seeing ourselves with photo.

It will still be awaiting us on the other side.

But we can go through it.

We can step into the fear and claim that space, like we’ve been claiming it in other parts of our lives.

And, I expect that your experience will be much like mine when I started on this self-love through selfies journey. I ended up having far more fun than I expected and feeling like I was not only getting photos that allowed me to see myself reflected back in that neutral way, where I got to see my body just be my body…I also became more able to deal with those moments of tunnel vision that happen when we have the opposite, when we see photos and feel triggered into old body stories.

It’s by going through the camera, not around it, not avoiding it…that I truly believe we can find our way to a more compassionate relationship with our bodies in photos and in our lives as a whole.

So take a selfie today…I dare you. It’s not going to open the door to narcissistic behaviour…but it just might open the door to a future where you no longer get tunnel vision when seeing photos that focus in on your perceived ‘faults’ and instead can see your body in a photo with compassion.

Or come join me for the Claiming Space E-Course starting May 1st! Or the Be Your Own Beloved E-Course (if you haven’t taken it yet…it’s a great place to start this journey) that runs this July.

January 11, 2016

Rewriting Narcissus

If I touch that place where our hands meet

If I look you’re there looking back at me, with eyes of kindness.

Are we literally and visually falling down the rabbit hole of that much feared word ‘narcissistic’ and the myth of Narcissus?

No.

We’ve been told not to fall in love with our own reflection in both subtle and bold ways so often that we look away. Look as far away as we can.

We throw stones at the water to shake up and distort our reflection.

We hide from the waters edge, from the cameras lens out of fear of being called that 12 letter word.

Out of fear of being called self-centred.

Yet it has left us so far from our own centre and we look into the water and all we see is a stranger.

I was so tired of looking at the woman looking back at me with hate.

Tired of making her the enemy.

Tired of mocking her or never letting her be enough.

Tired of fearing that if I looked at her for too long I’d become fixated like Narcissus.

But that is a myth. It always was.

What isn’t a myth is that there is someone looking back at us in the mirror, in the camera, in the water…asking to be seen.

So I’ve been sitting at the waters edge visiting her, the one awaiting me in the reflection, in the camera.

Seeing her with love, despite the fear of what others might call building a relationship with our own self-image. Because I know it’s not narcissistic and how much that word has gotten in the way of connecting with ourselves.

I know it’s about reaching into the water and touching her hand, befriending her.

It’s about looking into the lens and not looking away in shame, not needing to be different but for this to be enough.

It’s about showing up for myself, for ourselves.

And the knowing that if someone else thinks it is narcissistic, then I’ll send them love into that space between themselves and their reflection in the water, in the lens and hope they turn towards themselves with compassion someday too.

After seeing this photo the other day after taking the above one the same day, this post spilled out. I hadn’t realized until this point that this photo series I’d been doing with my reflection was woven with this reclamation of my own reflection, back from the hands of this story and into my own.

If you’re wanting to make peace with your reflection, with your self-image especially through the camera lens, come join me for the Be Your Own Beloved class…we start February 1st!

December 11, 2015

A Look Back at 2015 in Self-Portraits

Every year for the past few years I’ve done one of these end of the year posts, a round up of my favourite self-portraits from the past year.

It can be mighty powerful to gather our favourite images from the past year together, to see the story of these individual images and the visual narrative they capture for us collectively.

You can check out the 2014, 2013 and 2012 posts here:

One thing I noticed happening this year was an epic return to using my DSLR. It wasn’t something I had as an expectation of myself, but happened largely because it felt joyful and extra magical to use my DSLR again. I think a lot of that magic was sparked since my friend Sylvia showing me this app and using my iPhone as a remote and to frame photos. Being able to frame my photo that way felt like it opened the door even wider to getting creative with self-portraits!

These posts are also so important to me, to bring together the visual story of the year. As always, there are stories underneath what you as the viewer will see in these.

Some of epic moments, like the story of standing on those cobblestones street in Riga, Latvia sorting through the emotion of coming home to a place I had never been but felt connected to my whole life. Or the stories that you’ll see in the October of my travels in Scotland and Ireland and how deeply nourishing that trip was. I travelled abroad more this year than I have ever in my life (I’d only ever been out of North America once before this year, to Ireland). Or that day there was suddenly a beautiful and fancy chair just sitting right in the middle of one of my favourite photo spots and it turned into an epic selfie photo shoot, the kind I’d hope to offer to a photo client and that I had to push myself to offer to myself. Or that moment drinking a glass of Rose on the Oregon Coast with truly lovely friends staring out in the Ocean looking for whales.

Others, of simple moments like that moment before the sun set in the pinkish photo taken near my parents place. Or the regular photo walks around my neighbourhood standing in those beautiful pink petals or that last ray of light of the day. Or that day when my inner protector let her voice be heard.

An unexpected muse of this year turned out to be this small koi point in the community garden. I’d put my camera on the ledge on one side (carefully of course) and stand on the other side often with the photo focused on the lotuses that grew there. It wasn’t my intention, but the imagery of the lotus representing self-compassion feels so woven into these photos and into this year, moving to a place this year in my own body love and self-compassion journey where I was able to settle into a place where all the work I’ve been doing these years to let go of the old stories of self-critique feels more embodied, more a part of my new normal and opened up to a more peaceful place with myself this year.

If you have a draw to try this kind of post on your blog…I highly recommend it! It takes a bit of time to gather them (I organize my photos by month throughout the year which helps) but seeing them altogether is a really powerful year end reflection exercise. This year I’m thinking of gifting myself with printing each of these years out in a soft cover book like this one and be able to look back on these years and the stories they hold for me.

So here they are, my favourite photos of this year.

January:

February:

March:

April:

May:

June:

July:

August:

September:

October:

November:

December: